Skype, which is based in Luxembourg for tax reasons, may have had its actions already sanctioned by the country’s politicians. The European principality’s constitution enshrines the right to privacy, and says that surveillance of communications can only occur either with judicial approval or authorization of a tribunal selected by the prime minister.

The surveillance agency’s tech spooks had worked out how to wiretap video calls on the VoIP entity since July 2012. At the same time, its parent company, Microsoft, was accused of building an NSA-sized catflap onto its Outlook.com mail service in order to allow access to its users’ mails and communications.AD